New paper finds climate skeptical blogosphere is important source of expertise, reinterpretation, & scientific knowledge production
From The Hockey Schtick:
A paper published on April 5th in Global Environmental Change finds the climate skeptical blogosphere serves as an alternative network of scientific knowledge production, and “are key protagonists in a process of attempted expert knowledge de-legitimisation and contestation, acting not only as translators between scientific research and lay audiences, but, in their reinterpretation of existing climate science knowledge claims, are acting themselves as alternative public sites of expertise for a climate sceptical audience.”
According to the authors, “A network of 171 individual blogs is identified, with three blogs in particular found to be the most central: Climate Audit, JoNova and Watts Up With That. These blogs predominantly focus on the scientific element of the climate debate, providing either a direct scientifically-based challenge to mainstream climate science, or a critique of the conduct of the climate science system.
This overt scientific framing, as opposed to explicitly highlighting differences in values, politics, or ideological worldview, appears to be an important contributory factor in the positioning of the most central blogs.”
The abstract appears to be complimentary to the climate skeptic blogosphere as science-based sources of “expertise”, “scientific knowledge production”, and “reinterpretation”, as opposed to prior papers characterization of climate skeptic blogs as “deniers” of climate change and climate science.
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| WUWT is somewhere in the center there |
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The climate sceptical blogosphere is identified as a network of 171 blogs.
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An overt science framing appears to contribute to the most central blogs’ positions.
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The most central blogs may be seen as key nodes in an alternative knowledge network.
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They are alternative public sites of expertise for a climate sceptical audience.
Abstract
While mainstream scientific knowledge production has been extensively examined in the academic literature, comparatively little is known about alternative networks of scientific knowledge production. Online sources such as blogs are an especially under-investigated site of knowledge contestation. Using degree centrality and node betweenness tests from social network analysis, and thematic content analysis of individual posts, this research identifies and critically examines the climate sceptical blogosphere and investigates whether a focus on particular themes contributes to the positioning of the most central blogs. A network of 171 individual blogs is identified, with three blogs in particular found to be the most central:Climate Audit, JoNova and Watts Up With That. These blogs predominantly focus on the scientific element of the climate debate, providing either a direct scientifically-based challenge to mainstream climate science, or a critique of the conduct of the climate science system. This overt scientific framing, as opposed to explicitly highlighting differences in values, politics, or ideological worldview, appears to be an important contributory factor in the positioning of the most central blogs. It is suggested that these central blogs are key protagonists in a process of attempted expert knowledge de-legitimisation and contestation, acting not only as translators between scientific research and lay audiences, but, in their reinterpretation of existing climate science knowledge claims, are acting themselves as alternative public sites of expertise for a climate sceptical audience.
Jo Nova had a writeup about it last November while the paper was being submitted for publication, which is worth reading again.
From the paper:
Two tests for degree centrality (Freeman’s and Bonacich’s approach) were chosen as ‘very simple, but often very effective measure[s] of an actor’s centrality’ (Hanneman and Riddle 2005: 148). Freeman’s approach shows the centrality of a node based on its degree, that is, the number of connections a node has. In this case, the rating score represents the number of other blogs linking to that blog on their respective blog rolls.
The blog with the highest in-degree rating according to Freeman’s approach is Watts Up With That (WUWT), authored by California-based Anthony Watts, with 54% of the climate sceptical blogosphere linking to WUWT. WUWT itself claims it is the ‘world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change’ and the results of this test appear to support this assertion.
Freeman’s approach may also be used to analyse out-degree linkages, that is, examining which blogs’ blog-rolls are the most extensive. While out-degree score is usually seen as a measure of how influential an actor is in a network, in this case, a blog has no control over whether or not it is included in another blogs’ blog-roll. It is thus possible that out-degree score in the context of a blogosphere may instead be regarded as an indicator of desire to enhance the network, for example, by ensuring readers are aware that there are multiple other blogs that support the position of the original blog. Interestingly, only two blogs
show both high in- and out-degree linkages (WUWT and Bishop Hill). Tables 3 and 4 show the top 10 Freeman’s approach scores for in- and out-degree linkage.
An open access version of the paper is available here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publications/WorkingPapers/Papers/120-29/Mapping-the-climate-sceptical-blogosphere.pdf
Given that it is from the Grantham Institute, I wonder how Bob Ward is taking the news?
On a side note, there’s no “network” of 171 blogs. We don’t have a group, guild, or any sort of organization. Her network claim is little more than an identification of like minded people that operate climate related blogs. And, I don’t think about the blogroll that much and I doubt it has the significance she assigns to it.
Even so, thanks for the props.
I smell hearburn already from some alarmists! Kudos to Anthony and crew on an outstanding site!
I heard/read two things this week that really break down the AGW debate.
The term “regression to the mean”
and someone somewhere saying: “the main thing missing from most climate science is curiosity”
Anthony, thank you for refusing to be part of the former while also being one of the best suppliers of the latter.
Harkin
The center will know nothing of the front line conflict unless it sends out recon units for more facts.
The center can fool itself into a limited incorrect knowing.
Push the fringe, go where none of the warming cult expect, report back.
I believe that’s a typo early in your article, Anthony.
“The abstract appears to be complementary…” should read “complimentary”. [Thanks, fixed. ~mod.]
Certainly the article does not complement sceptic blogs. By my standards, they are indeed complimenting you, and deservedly so, too. But I wonder if they realise they are complimenting you?
What leads me to wonder this is the jargon they use. Expressions such as “knowledge production” are warning signs of pseudo-scholarship of the post-modernist style, a scholastic aberration as deluded, unproductive and regrettable as the current detour into climate alarmism is.
Congrats Anthony!
A few months ago, I suggested they take away Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize and give it to you and you made a funny response related to flying monkeys.
Of course the ones making such decisions probably consider Watts up with that? as an inconvenient truth but maybe since that comment, the odds have increased, now at:
.000000002.
Seriously, I used to spend a great deal of time searching for legit science related to climate change until finding this place.
As an operational meteorologist for 32 years, I like to think my definition of legit includes objectively and authenticity based on it making sense and having empirical data/observations to support it.
Thanks Much
Mike
There is an interesting difference between the draft version, that has been around for some time, and has been widely discussed at sceptic blogs (including Bishop Hil and Jo Nova) and the final version just published.
In the draft, the first sentence was
“Evidence supporting the reality of climate change and its anthropogenic cause is overwhelming in the peer-reviewed literature (J. Cook et al. 2013; Doran and Zimmerman 2009).”
This statement was much ridiculed at BH and elsewhere, with some people saying they couldn’t read any further.
But in the published version, the first sentence is
“Outside the paradigm of mainstream climate science, and particularly in online environments, the validity of an accepted body of research underlying the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change (defined here as agreement with Section 2 (Causes of change) of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007) is actively disputed”.
The Cook and Doran papers don’t get mentioned at all. This is quite interesting because it’s most unlikely that the reviewers of the paper (who will have been warmist sociologists) asked her to take them out, so it was probably removed because of the negative comments on the sceptic blogs.
Snow,
I visited your greatwhitecon pages. I saw nothing any skeptic would dispute. So what’s your beef?
Is it that WUWT does not limit it’s sea ice coverage to that which greatwhitecon does?
Because your claiming WUWT cherry picks the facts it presents signals you have never visited the WUWT sea ice page.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
Only a purposefully mendacious alarmist would assert that collection of essentially every conceivable sea ice source is a cherry picking.
Can you just cut to the chase and spit out what your point is instead of the usual foggy implying or vague suggesting.
If you are suggesting people should only consider the single long term graph of arctic sea ice extent then you are a pot calling the kettle black cherry picker.
Worse yet is your cherry picking hypocrisy in asserting a graph starting at 1979 is a long term
presentation.
If you put your alarmist’s criticism in historical perspective you’ll look like fool as well as a hypocrite.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
@Steve Oregon says: April 9, 2014 at 9:10 am
As your starter for 10, the word volume seems to be conspicuous only by its absence on the WUWT sea ice page (page last updated 2-26-14).
[There was a front page report on the sea ice volume in Feb. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/05/cryosat-shows-arctic-sea-ice-volume-up-50-from-last-year/ but you probably won’t like that either, since you are just another detractor with a fake name – mod]
One of the simplest reasons for many visitors to this site to return is the simple fact that most scientific journal articles are behind paywalls inaccessible to those not working in academia or other research organisations. I am more than capable of understanding primary research papers, having worked in biomedical research for over a decade and written both original research papers, review articles and book chapters for technical monographs. But as I no longer work in research, I no longer have access to libraries, either traditional or virtual in nature.
WUWT is infinitely superior to the ‘national newspapers’ which are now little more than propaganda tools for unaccountable publishers. Those organs limit themselves by length of article issues, meaning that nothing is ever examined properly. Little value is added as a result and the value often comes in reading blog contributions rather than the primary article.
The TV media is equally as bad, with the BBC being in metaphorical bed with the IPCC and several of its journalists flagrantly abusing its neutrality charter.
So that leaves books, which is an expensive way of covering the ground (in that to be reasonably sure of not becoming biased simply by only selecting two or three titles) which for many folks doesn’t make financial sense.
At that point, you look for folks who provide understandable, accessible, discursive portals of information which are open to discuss issues based on evidence, not propaganda.
There is still a bit of a ‘cabal’ like nature to the team of folks who actually contribute articles at this site. I’m not criticising that, but a danger will emerge that WUWT becomes the views of a small number of people (such as Christopher, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, Willis Eschenbach and a few others). It’s like any media organisation: sooner or later you need to ask if you need to freshen up through having fresh authors. I’m not suggesting that that is currently necessary, merely pointing out potential for ossification in future.
The other danger is the subversion of the site to ‘national security’ nonsense and very powerful media moguls who want to monitor/track the visitors to this site without obtaining their explicit consent so to do. It’s 21st century reality, I’m afraid and whether WUWT is above all that, who knows. To date, I’ve not bothered finding out……
Snow White says:
April 9, 2014 at 7:37 am
@Sun Spot says: April 9, 2014 at 7:01 am
Whereas I think you are totally un-aware that this web site cherry picks “the facts” it chooses to present to its readers:
… GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/03/watts-up-with-the-maximum-trend/
You did it again! You have referenced your own website as an example of cherry-picking.
Is English your native tongue?
Snow White says:
April 9, 2014 at 7:37 am
“Whereas I think you are totally un-aware that this web site cherry picks “the facts” it chooses to present to its readers:”
I know of no warmist website that has the kind of reference pages WUWT offers. Make that, no website at all except WUWT that has this array of data.
So stick your idiotic accusation where the sun don’t shine.
Hi Snow!
(Too bad there is just so much of the white stuff hanging around this late in spring causing delayed planting now, flooding later, and much loss of money and effort …)
By the way. Today, with an Antarctic sea ice area anomaly of 1.28 Mkm^2, that little bit of “excess” Antarctic sea ice everybody in the CAGW community is busily ignoring down south at -60 latitude is now larger than the entire Hudson’s Bay up at latitude 60 north.
And, if that comparison seems “too complex” or “too much of a “cherry picked fact” we could approximate it a little bit:
That “excess” Antarctic sea ice area is now slightly larger than half of Greenland!
Anthony: A well-deserved congratulations!!!
A statement like this one “These blogs [WUWT among others] predominantly focus on the scientific element of the climate debate, providing either a direct scientifically-based challenge to mainstream climate science, or a critique of the conduct of the climate science system, and appear to be less preoccupied with other types of scepticism that are prevalent in the wider public debate such as ideologically or values-motivated scepticism.” is surely a very nice and big feather in Anthony’s WUWT cap!!
WUWT is, in other terms, objective, factual, and constructively critical. Like ALL scientists should be!! Many AGWers can learn a thing or two from you!
Anthony, this “scientific” paper marks you as a prime target for eco-terrorists. At least this is how “central position” is interpreted by loonies.
WUWT is somewhere in the center there
Not sure I’d really like to be in the middle of that pincushion, but it’s nice to be acknowledged as making a difference. 🙂
Now please excuse me while I check my mailbox for that check from Big Oil (TM). It seems to have been lost in the mail for years and years, but I’m sure it will show up some day. After all, 97% agree that it’s on the way. /snark
In total, 171 blogs were identified6, 155 of which are allocated to category 1 (openly
sceptical) with the remaining 15 identified as category 2 (self-proclaimed “openminded”).
Skepticism, or climate realism and open-mindedness pretty much go hand-in-hand, so I’m puzzled as to why they felt a need to have the sub-category. Perhaps what they meant by “open-minded” was “clueless”, as in “we don’t know who to believe”.
In fact, most skeptics/climate realists only came to that stance due to their open-mindedness, or willingness to accept new information.
@mod says: April 9, 2014 at 9:46 am
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2014/04/the-arctic-sea-ice-recovery-vanishes-even-more/#PIOMAS
“According to the PIOMAS model at least, Arctic sea ice volume has now reached the second lowest level for the date since the satellite record began.”
You probably won’t like that either! Is that why it’s not front page news at WUWT this week?
Catastrophic Climate Change skepticity, is a bit like gravity; it sucks !
So it is perfectly natural for those who don’t naturally flock to a cliff to jump off, are drawn to the center of skepticity; which it seems is WUWT.
CCCMMGW, is like electromagnetism; it is repulsive, and as a result tends to explode in all directions from a lack of any underlying coherence.
So keep it up skeptics; education is a slow process; it can consume all of one’s life.
Snow White says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:15 am
I see you continue to obsess over the Arctic sea ice area/volume/extents.
Would you be upset if I asked, “Why?”
See, for seven months of the years, the (ever-expanding/freezing/ever-increasing) edge of the Antarctic sea ice extents receives MORE solar radiation than does the (receding/melting) edge of the Arctic sea ice extents. In fact, it is only the last week of March-first week in April that the two ice packs receive near-equal solar radiation. By the equinox in mid-September – when the Arctic is at its minimum (All cry and shriek: “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH We will see an ice-free Arctic!”) and the Antarctic sea ice extents nears its maximum – the edge of the Antarctic sea ice extents receives FIVE TIMES more solar radiation than does the Arctic sea ice edge.
Further, during those five lonely months when the Arctic Ocean is receiving more radiation than the edge of the Antarctic sea ice, the measured Arctic sea ice albedo is remarkably low: dropping to as low as 0.42 in mid-July when solar TOA radiation is also at its lowest of only 1310 watts/m^2. (And this very low arctic sea ice albedo is actually, at low solar elevation angles, very close to the actual open ocean albedo of 0.38 to 0.40 for direct sunlight on a clear day at SEA angles under 8 degrees.) So, there really is almost no difference in heat absorbed in the open arctic ocean compared to the “dirty” melting sea ice of today’s arctic.
On the other hand, ALL solar energy reflected back into space due to ANY “excess” antarctic sea ice DOES immediately cool the planet.
re: Steve Oregon says April 9, 2014 at 9:10 am
… Because your claiming WUWT …
MY EYES! MY EYES! I can’t take it! The language is slipping away!!!
(The above cited text does not ‘parse’ correctly either.)
.
Sorry to have ‘choked’ on the above, but, I’m not buying such mistakes are simple ‘typos’ anymore. I’m thinking ppl just don’t know/no/Noe any more the differences between “you are” which (in English) can become the contraction “you’re” versus the completely different possessive pronoun “your” (indicating the other person ‘owns’ something or some trait or some characteristic).
Kudos to Anthony and site (NOT cite) members/mods too.
[The mods read that phrasing also, and – after a good bit of difficulty, were able to interpret it as we assumed the writer intended. Thus, no edits were made nor assumed “typo’s” corrected. Mod]
.
Taking a WAG at Amelia Sharman’s age, I would have to say that her ‘network of 171 blogs’ is simply a figment of her natural valley girl speech mode.
These days, if you aren’t “networking”, you are just not with it. Well you see it’s an extension of the Gaia hypothesis, or Hillary Clinton’s “it takes a village” mantra.
The idea that one can have independent thoughts, not driven by a crowd mentality, is just anathema to today’s youth.
Snow White says: “@wws – I’d hazard a guess that you are currently unaware that the temperature in Tiksi is currently around 0 °C?”
God bless the good people of Tiksi. They have a chance to see temps above freezing in the next few days. Perhaps achieving +2 C on Friday before returning to sub zero temps for the next 7 days.
SO…..What is your Cherry Picking Point? An obscure point in the remote north is going to experience a single day of of above zero weather in the month of April. This teeny tiny weensie cherry of a data point is significant to you?
to quote Jim Rome “Have a Take and Don’t Suck.”
“””””…..RACookPE1978 says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:35 am
Snow White says:
April 9, 2014 at 10:15 am
I see you continue to obsess over the Arctic sea ice area/volume/extents.
Would you be upset if I asked, “Why?” …..”””””
I often wonder, in the midst of all the “why is the sky blue ?” or “why is the night sky black instead of white (from an infinity of stars)?” ; does anybody EVER ask :
Why is there so much ice at the earth’s polar regions ??
They don’t have a whole lot of ice in Honolulu, outside of the bars; so why all that ice in the polar regions.
It is conjectured (without proof) that the earth’s polar regions have so much ice, because there is next to no solar energy arriving there. In particular, the polar regions DO NOT receive solar energy at a rate of 342 or even 240 W/m^2 density, as Dr. Kevin Trenberth claims they do.
Ergo, it matters little what the polar ice albedo contribution is; there isn’t much solar energy there to reflect back into space anyway !!
So nyet on polar ice having much to do with cooling planet earth.
Rhys Jaggar,
“There is still a bit of a ‘cabal’ like nature to the team of folks who actually contribute articles at this site. I’m not criticising that, but a danger will emerge that WUWT becomes the views of a small number of people (such as Christopher, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, Willis Eschenbach and a few others). It’s like any media organisation: sooner or later you need to ask if you need to freshen up through having fresh authors. I’m not suggesting that that is currently necessary, merely pointing out potential for ossification in future.
The other danger is the subversion of the site to ‘national security’ nonsense and very powerful media moguls who want to monitor/track the visitors to this site without obtaining their explicit consent so to do. It’s 21st century reality, I’m afraid and whether WUWT is above all that, who knows. To date, I’ve not bothered finding out……”
This poster provided many sincere compliments(not included), then also made suggestions in a very constructive way(included). They hit several nails on the head.
I have pondered over this a great deal, including attempts at self evaluation of that human.weakness/emotion………… cognitive bias.
Once one knows that a person or entity is not telling the truth or they/it is misleading, and we know the truth, it compels us to spend most of our time on the subject:
1. Showing the truth and
2. Providing evidence that shows they are not telling the truth
Often, #2 gets more and more weight as somebody deceiving, especially if we suspect it’s intentionally to manipulate others is blatant fraud and should get top priority. At that point, we lose some objectivity to “fight fire with fire” and our message includes less and less of truths that the other side may have right, since out objective becomes destroying their credibility and exposing them.
Like RJ above, I am not saying WUWT has an issue related to this that needs immediate attention, just that we are all human and can’t help but succumb to our innate cognitive bias’s, even as scientists.
Read through the list from the link below and honestly evaluate yourself. Everyone here has at least a few bias’s, especially me. It’s human to have bias’s. The key to minimizing their effect on your judgement and behavior in negative ways is being aware of them.
Funny thing is that it’s easy to recognize somebody else’s bias when we disagree with them. Most often, one side has got it more right than the other. It’s the bias by each side that keeps one or both sides from converging(in fact, will often cause them to diverge) even when the truth/answer is becoming increasingly obvious in the real world.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Let’s take the case of Obama’s spending tens of billions of dollars to fight climate change and vilify CO2=pollution, when humans increasing CO2 has been the best thing that they have ever done for the earths’s vegetative health and the creatures that eat those plants. Are we viewing these political actions with bias from the other side, making it impossible to see anything except that his agenda and policies are completely counterproductive and really eff’d up?
Maybe my bias is causing me to overlook some positive elements?……………………..NO, it’s completely eff’d up………. but then, that’s what happens when politics get involved with science!!!
To a degree I am feeling like this research paper on the 171 blogs on climate that use science to re-interpret mainstream climate science does read like a hit list, Anthony you must really be holding the tiger by the tail! When we CAGW skeptics are required to wear identifying tags and our legs manacled in carbon steel bracelets……
Well done, Anthony! I’ve always been impressed with the generally high-level scientific analysis that we respondents engage in. I mean, we have Dr. Lief Svalgaard as regular contributor/teacher! It’s always an honor to have him respond directly to my questions.
Keep up the good work, everyone. The basic science of “carbon dioxide, methane, etc. absorb infrared radiation” is not in doubt, but their cumulative effects upon climate remain to be resolved.